In addition to Mór Vig, another lawyer may also have been involved in the transactions surrounding the renovation of the Chain Bridge, Gergely Karácsony's defense seems to be collapsing.
In addition to Mór Vig, another lawyer, a certain Dániel Hegedűs, also took huge sums of cash from the funds transferred by A-Híd Zrt. to Sunstrike Hungary Kft.'s account. With the HUF 500 million borrowed by Hegedűs, the amount received by those involved in the case is almost 1.5 billion. However, it is still not known why A-Híd Zrt, working on the renovation of the Lánchíd, had to convert such a large sum into cash.
Gergely Karácsony's previous defense seems to be collapsing in light of the new developments.
In addition to the 900 million forints known so far, Dániel Hegedűs took an additional 500 million forints in cash from the approximately one and a half billion forints transferred by A-Híd Zrt., which is carrying out the renovation of the Chain Bridge, to the account of Vig Mór's ex-lawyer, Vig Mór's company, Sunstrike Hungary Kft.
It is known that in November 2023, the people of the National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) went out in force to more than thirty locations and arrested the brother of the head of Amnesty International Hungary, Dávid Vig, Mór Vig, who, according to the suspicion, is a multi-hundred million HUF operated an invoice price. The Mandiner has now found out:
the lawyer Dávid Hegedűs, who can be seen in the video of the raids, was arrested at another location, who may also have been involved in the crimes.
One and a half months later, on January 11, 2024, Mandiner wrote that the NAV investigators were also able to search A-Híd Zrt, which was renovating the Lánchíd, when Vig Mórék was arrested. The importance of this information really grew when, not long after, ATV found out that A-Híd Zrt. transferred nearly one and a half billion forints to the account of Vig Mór's company, Sunstrike Hungary Kft., from which the The man transferred around HUF 900 million to his own private and lawyer's escrow accounts and withdrew the amount in cash.
These transfers were made from the account of A-Híd Zrt. between November 2020 and July 2022, and Mór Vig usually converted the incoming amounts into cash immediately on the day of the transfers.
The Mandiner learned from Dániel Hegedűs's circles that his participation took place after Mór Vig, who had previously been involved in several crimes, was banned from practicing as a lawyer.
That's when Hegedűs was involved in the transactions, who transferred the amounts coming to Sunstrike Hungary Kft to his own lawyer's escrow account and took another HUF 500 million in cash. All this took place between the end of March 2022 and the middle of July 2022.
This time interval is also interesting because it refutes Gergely Karácsony's previous defense in the bridging money scandal.
The mayor, who says there is no Chain Bridge case anyway, previously argued that the manipulations of Mór Vig and A-Híd Zrt. and the renovation of the Chain Bridge did not coincide in time. This explanation was not entirely correct in the case of Vig Mór, as the renovation of the Chain Bridge began in the spring of 2021, and the relevant tender was already announced in March 2020.
And Dániel Hegedűs took the HUF 500 million in cash that came from the company working on the renovation of the bridge one by one during the renovation of the Chain Bridge.
For Gergely Karácsony, this new strand of the bridge money scandal is particularly unpleasant, because the tender for renovation was already announced under suspicious circumstances. After taking office, the mayor canceled the tender also won by A-Híd in the Tarlós era, citing the high price offers, and nine months later, the same company announced the tender again for five billion, with a reduced technical content. won with a HUF more expensive offer.
In addition, the advance payment owed to A-Híd Zrt was increased from HUF 75 million to nearly HUF 4 billion, so that the possible penalty imposed on the contractor was halved for some reason.
Since then, Gergely Karácsony has not given an appreciable explanation for all of this. In January 2021, when Inforádio was asked about the matter, the mayor said: "Look, I can honestly say that I cannot give you the exact answer."
In the meantime, Zsolt Wintermantel reacted to Mandiner's revelation: the head of the Fidesz-KDNP faction in the capital reminded in his Facebook post on Sunday:
A-Híd Zrt. is the company for which Mayor Gergely Karácsony "moved every stone to win the construction tender".
If you were to ask the question why Budapest has no money and who could have received this huge amount from the company suspected of money laundering, you can answer based on the above! - stated Zsolt Wintermantel, who closed his post with the following comment:
Do you still have questions about how the left scoops up the money of the people of Budapest?
Cover image: Mayor Gergely Karácsony (b) hands over one of the spanners of the Chain Bridge to bridge master János Fazekas at the handover of the renovated bridge at the bridgehead of the Chain Bridge in Buda on August 4, 2023
Source: MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry
